Life with Cooper, Tooey, and Carlin, the Irish Water Spaniels

Rally Advanced Excellent, #3

This is going to be a short post because this is a busy, busy dog weekend.

Cooper got his 3rd RAE leg today at the Mt. Hood Keeshond Club Rally trials in Salem today. Our performance wasn’t as spectacular as his 2nd RAE leg, but it did the job.

He earned a very nice score of 93 and a 4th place in the Excellent class, and then went on to qualify in Advanced class with a 94, tied for 4th place. The beagle who also got a 94 was just over a minute faster completing the course than Cooper, so the beagle took 4th place.

I started out being disappointed. (When did placing become just as important as qualifying? It used to be that I was thrilled to just qualify.) And for an IWS to be slower than a beagle — it just boggled my mind.

But then I saw how thrilled and delighted the beagle’s owner was. Her eyes sparkled, and her cheeks were pink with happiness that she and her dog had done so well on their first Advanced leg — I couldn’t begrudge her that.

2 Responses

Love your descriptive posts and your great attitude! It is so easy to get caught up in placing…as one judge said before the trials began…remember u entered this trial not your dog!!!! Some days they Re on and some days there r just too many distractions! 72 might not b the best but u qualified!!!!